NURS-6002 Week 3 Discussion

Using the Walden Library

Where can you find evidence to inform your thoughts and scholarly writing? Throughout your degree program, you will use research literature to explore ideas, guide your thinking, and gain new insights. As you search the research literature, it is important to use resources that are peer-reviewed and from scholarly journals. You may already have some favorite online resources and databases that you use or have found useful in the past. For this Discussion, you explore databases available through the Walden Library.

Note: Unless otherwise noted, initial postings to Discussions are due on or before Day 3, and response postings are due on or before Day 6. You are required to participate in the Discussion on at least three different days (a different day for main post and each response). It is important to adhere to the weekly time frame to allow others ample time to respond to your posting. In addition, you are expected to respond to questions directed toward your own initial posting in a timely manner.

Solution

Navigating Peer-Reviewed Literature

Mohamed, Z., & Al-Hmaimat, N. (2024). The effectiveness of nurse residency programs on new graduate nurses’ retention: Systematic Review. Heliyon, 10(5).https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e26272Links to an external site.

I retrieved the peer-reviewed article from the ScienceDirect database. ScienceDirect is a reputable and comprehensive online source for scientific and scholarly research. It is widely used by healthcare professionals, educators, and researchers to access peer-reviewed literature across various disciplines, including nursing and healthcare. The database provides credible scientific journals that are peer-reviewed, which is standard practice and an important part of determining the credibility and quality of work submitted. The database supports and maintains integrity and authenticity in the advancement of science to strive to produce high-quality research. By using targeted keywords related to nurse residency programs and new graduate nurse retention, I was able to locate the article. ScienceDirect’s advanced search features and filtering options ensured that I found current, peer-reviewed, and relevant research that directly supports my practice area as a psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner. The reliability and credibility of ScienceDirect make it a valuable tool for academic and clinical research.

One of the main difficulties I encountered was narrowing down the results to peer-reviewed studies that specifically addressed nurse residency programs (NRPs) and their impact on new graduate nurse retention. Many articles discussed related topics, such as nurse burnout or transition shock, but did not directly focus on residency programs. Again, using overly broad or generic keywords at first brought many unrelated studies, which took too much of my time to sift through irrelevant results. I had to revise my search strategy several times by experimenting with different combinations of keywords like “new graduate nurse,” “nurse retention,” “residency program,” and “systematic review.” To have comprehensive coverage, Onemust try various combinations of these keywords and synonyms. For example, an initial search using only “nurse residency” and “retention” might miss articles that use “transition to practice” or “newly qualified nurses.” Another challenge was ensuring that the selected article was current and published within the last five years to maintain relevance and applicability to modern clinical practice. If I had a specific date range in mind that did not perfectly align with the article’s publication date, I could have initially missed it to force me to broaden my search timeframe. Also, obtaining the full text of the article might present a challenge. Although this article is open access, it only provided a sneak peek of the abstract and a summary of titles like background, PICO question, inclusion criteria, and methods. I did not see the option to download the whole issue or view the PDF, which was hard for me initially. I realized that many peer-reviewed articles are behind paywalls as they require institutional access or individual purchase.

The ScienceDirect database would be beneficial to my colleagues. ScienceDirect is a comprehensive database that has an extensive collection of peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and other scholarly content from Elsevier, a major academic publisher in the health sciences. ScienceDirect creates a unique database, which will help my colleagues commit to the pursuit of academic innovation, skills-based training, and a tradition of excellence in research to apply in their clinical practice. Many journals indexed in ScienceDirect are known for significantly contributing to providing high-quality publications in health sciences and related sciences. This means colleagues who are also in the nursing field are likely to find cutting-edge research and evidence-based practices that can inform their clinical practice and education. ScienceDirect provides search tools like keyword searching and filtering by publication date, journal title, and article type. This is important to enable my colleagues to efficiently and effectively locate articles relevant to their areas of interest or research questions, saving them time. Often, institutions, including Walden University, have subscriptions that provide full-text access to articles on ScienceDirect. So, having a subscription through Walden University allows students and faculty full-text access to peer-reviewed articles on ScienceDirect, making it easier to find and utilize high-quality research for academic and professional purposes. Even without direct full-text access, the platform links abstracts and options for interlibrary loans or purchases, facilitating access to needed information. ScienceDirect often provides information on how frequently an article has been cited and suggests related articles. This can help colleagues trace the evolution of research in a particular area and discover additional relevant studies they might not have found through their initial search. ScienceDirect platform is generally well-designed and user-friendly. It can make searching easier for colleagues to navigate and find the necessary information.

Yes, I recommend the ScienceDirect database, especially for individuals in institutions like Walden University.  The reason is that ScienceDirect provides a massive collection of peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, specifically within nursing, health sciences, and related fields. This means a user is more likely to find research directly applicable to their studies, practice, and areas of interest in nursing. The publications indexed in ScienceDirect have undergone rigorous peer review to ensure the credibility and reliability of the information accessed. This is important for academic work and evidence-based practice in nursing. The fact that Walden University provides full-text access through its subscriptions removes a significant barrier to accessing the research someone needs. Doing this can save time and money for individual article purchases. The database is continuously updated with the latest research, and this is crucial to ensure users have access to the most current evidence to inform their practice and studies.

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